Hope and Desperation, Part I

Hope took some time off from man-hunting to retrench. Story prog notified me that her mother Zuzu was close to dying and that now might be a good time to visit. I was kind of surprised by this, as it didn’t seem like Hope had moved out that long ago! How could it be that Zuzu was on her last legs already? Heck, Don was older than she was, and he was still going strong.

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So Hope walked over to the Dogpatch to visit her family. Her dad and sister were chatting in the living room, and Zuzu was doing something mundane like washing the dishes. No sooner had Hope entered the house than Zuzu walked out to the patio and began the dying process.

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The Shanleys shed many tears for their beloved Zuzu, and I have to admit I got a little choked up myself.

Thankfully a glitch in my game lightened the mood a little, at least for me.

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Yes, that is my Grim Reaper. I’m not sure if it’s a Story Progression bug or what, but wow. Who knew that Death wears a beret? Viva la mort!

Hope had a nice moment with her dad. She consoled him, and he let her cry on his shoulder.

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Then it got ugly. Don started yelling at Hope for no reason. It’s funny, because even though he has the Hot-headed trait, I rarely saw him get angry with anyone when I was running the household. His temper seems to have gotten the better of him in old age. (Or, more likely, I just kept him so busy that he had no time to stop and yell at anyone.)

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It happened later in the kitchen, too. In the story in my head, Don was yelling at Hope because she hadn’t found a husband yet, and Zuzu’s dying wish had been to see Hope get married. Which it was, literally: before Hope left home, Zuzu had a wish to see her get married, and I promised that it would happen. Ah well, I screwed that one up. Sorry, Zuzu!

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To diminish Hope’s mourning time, I had her place her mother’s gravestone in the cemetery (this was probably the next evening – they don’t seem to show up in the mausoleum right away) and mourn at it.

Very soon after that, I happened to see Hope thinking about China.

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Just a few days earlier, she had wished to visit Shang Simla, and I had promised her she would. So this was like her giving me a friendly reminder, and also telling me that now would be an excellent time to go!

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She was overwhelmed by its beauty upon arrival…and after spending a day collecting rocks and harvesting exotic fruits, she decided to camp out by the orchard. Before she could rest, though, she just had to talk to someone (her Social bar was way low), so I had her make a long-distance call to her BFF Travis.

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“Guess where I am, Travis? I’m in CHINA!!!!”

Gotta love those excitable Sims! They’re just so cute sometimes.

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Another animation I like is when they’re learning songs from the locals. The local always looks equal parts amused and apprehensive. Like “…um…well…heh…almost!”

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Seriously, who roasts an entire HEAD of lettuce over an open fire? Who roasts lettuce at all? Crazy!

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Back at base camp, Hope ran into Pangu’s Angels, a gang of tomb robbers who demanded she hand over all of her ancient coins.

(OK, so it was just a major traffic jam, but doesn’t it look like they’re ready to rumble?)

So Hope spent a jolly holiday in China collecting, chatting with the locals, and enjoying the scenery. I think she also might have done a few easy adventures to get her visa level up and learned a bit of Sim Fu. She returned home refreshed and happy, no longer mourning over her mother’s passing.

Sometime after Hope’s return, I was notified that Mara had gotten married to a man named Cale Cobb. I clicked on his face at some point so it would zoom to where he was; I wanted to take a good look at the guy. And of course he was…an elder. Too many single geezers in town, I tells ya!

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Well, I’ve played quite a bit past this point, but I have wayyy too many pictures, so I’m splitting this up into two posts. Here’s one last bonus pic, though – before Zuzu died, I saw her and Don having dinner at the bistro. Zuzu ordered the Lobster Thermidor and Don got a Cheesesteak. But I think Zuzu must have snuck some Tabasco sauce onto his sandwich or something, because she looks a little too pleased about him choking on his food…

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And why the heck are they sitting at separate tables? D’oh.

Part II is coming soon!

29 thoughts on “Hope and Desperation, Part I

  1. First of all, “toast” is always my anti-spam word. Lol.

    Second of all, I am really truly enjoying this challenge of yours. I’ve fallen in love with the Shanleys all over again, and I it is really fun to read about. I think Hope is so very pretty, and she seems like a sweet sim. Any man that doesn’t want her is just plain dumb! I was hoping she’d find a tourist to marry…she’d have cute chinese babies for sure. Is it even possible to marry tourists? I haven’t done much WA stuff yet.

    I have the same problems finding single sims ever since I installed that Story Progression mod. It seems they get married off so fast. And once they’re married, it’s near impossible to get past simple romantic interactions. I usually cheat…I make the sim that I want to marry the active sim, then break him up with his wife and have him move in with my main sim. Then I get them married! Lol, it’s cheat-y, but it gets the job done!

    I can’t wait for part 2.

    • Yup, you can definitely marry tourists; once you’ve met them, you can chat with them long distance from home and even invite them to visit. And heh at having to cheat to get your Sims married off…it’s really too bad that even non-EA Story mods have us resorting to things like that! Which one are you using?

      • Very nice to know about marrying townies. That opens up some new possibilities for my poor lonely sims. I’m using Twallan’s mod also. I love all of the notifications it gives you whenever something happens in the hood, but man does a lot of things happen! Like you’ve seen, I have trouble finding single sims too. It seems that right after they age up, they’re taken!

  2. Pangu’s angels.. lol!

    Man, I thought the story progression mod helped the rapid geezerification of the town. (I don’t have the mod yet… I’m clueless on installing, etc)

    Pangu’s Angels? BWAHAHAHAHA! I love it!

    • Yeah, I think because Riverview started out very YA/A heavy, and Story Progression is trying to keep the town at the same population, it just natually got geezer-heavy as everyone aged. It’s kind of like our own country and the baby boomer generation, I guess!

  3. Isn’t trying to find someone who isn’t an elder the pits?! I have been playing my game over the last couple of days, and trying to find a girl who was even -somewhat- close to my poor boy’s age and not already in a relationship was the worst part. I’ve taken to just trying to pair my sims up with whoever they go to high school with, but in one of my neighborhoods my main family is related to a lot of the other sims in the town, so all the other teens are cousins. Heh.

    Poor Zuzu! At least she got a rather humorous-looking Grimmy, though. And ah, the vacation pictures are slowly wearing away my willpower. I may have to go pick up WA here soon. ;) I hope Hope has some good luck in the man-hunting department soon!

    • Yeah, it’s certainly different from the days of TS2 where there were any number of single ugly townies/NPCs running around, just waiting to be drafted into the family. I guess any kind of story progression is going to make things more difficult, since no one’s in stasis anymore. Sorry to tempt you with pics of WA! Although I do think you’d enjoy it; it’s more fun than Bon Voyage was, to me, although I do wish you could have family vacations more easily. It’s very geared towards playing one Sim at a time.

      • And in Sims 2 if you found a good-looking NPC/townie you could just make a note of them and draft them into the family for later. In Sims 3 I can’t even keep track of the number of times my married sim has come across another that I would love to have marry into the family, only for them to be too old to be of use by the time the current kids finally age up!

        And back to WA… did you have any trouble with the game installing WA or anything? I’d heard a lot of people did, which is the main reason I’ve not yet picked it up. And now that I’m wanting to pick it up, I’m just worried if it’d screw up my game/current saves. :o

  4. Oh MAN! Poor Hope. So few men … so little time. I know exactly how she feels. *sigh* All the good ones are either taken, gay … or dead! I’m rooting for her to find someone in some exotic land somewhere … sometime. Moar Nao Plz?

  5. Poor Hope…maybe Reagan will die soon and Travis will be a little more amenable to hooking up!

    Ha, LOL at your Grim Reaper! What the hell is up with that?!

    I’ve got the same problem as you with finding eligible Sims, though in my case, they’re not married – they just don’t exist! I actually had to completely abandon my legacy hood because my male heir was waiting on a girl to marry and there were literally NONE! There hadn’t been any babies born to other families since well before my heir was born, so the other women in the hood were rather old and grey. And then when some women finally started getting pregnant, they all had boys (checked my story progression settings and the gender thing was on random, so it wasn’t that). It was frustrating!

    • Ack, that is definitely frustrating! I hope the various Story mods can evolve so that we can play things like Legacy challenges and not have these issues, but who knows. It’s too bad you had to abandon your legacy hood…yikes.

    • Hi Kay! Yup, I am using Twallan’s Story Progression, and I really like it, for the most part. I think you’re right, I just need to move some more families into town and shift the ratio of young’uns to geezers.

  6. Ha, that Grim looked funny! And, um, char-broiled. And what is with those traffic jams (“oh golly gosh, there’s someone standing in front of me! I’d best just stand here and look like a doof rather than just MOVING OUT OF THE WAY!”), that’s the one thing guaranteed to get me swearing at the game.

    Great update, although it did nothing to talk me out of attempting the Legacy challenge. I should try it just to see how long I can go this time without going insane and/or cheating.

    • Yeah, I ended up installing AwesomeMod just to get the better route navigation! My Sims don’t run into each other as much now, and if they do, they rectify it quickly, instead of standing around tapping their toes for eons…

      Good luck with the legacy challenge if you try one! I also recommend the Wishful Living Challenge — I find it more fun and challenging than a regular legacy.

  7. Hope is really sweet and cute. But what is up with no available guys!! I abandoned my Legacy for the same reason–

    I love how you and Hope were stalking anybody with the least bit promise.

    The first picture is really great too–I thought she was fishing in the farming town that came with the game, but then I saw the sphinx!

    • Heh, yeah, I’m in love with the scenery in the WA locations! Each one is beautiful in its own way (although France is a little undercooked compared to China and Egypt). It’s too bad you had to abandon your legacy, too…it’s funny, because the legacy challenge was such a hugely popular thing during the glory days of TS2. And it’s just not working as well in TS3, which is geared towards playing one family at a time. Anyway, hopefully the game and the various story mods will evolve so that we don’t have these issues.

  8. Married? He was married?! You just get notified and… well geez how is Hope going to find someone if that’s the case. Silly sims.
    I was waiting for you to say she found someone in China.. what about the guy who taught her a song? He was kinda cute.
    *tear* By Zuzu!

  9. It does occur. Does she get a way to contact Mr French Explorer Sebastien Goncalves? Maybe away from tombs and things he’ll be more approachable!

  10. I’m usually in lurker mode these days due to utter lack of time (sigh), but I had to comment since you’re blogging again AND since your grim reaper nearly made me pee myself with laughter.

    I’ve used a bunch of story progression mods and not run into that one, LOL! What a shame! That is just too funny to pass up. Poor Zuzu… at least the silly reaper brings some levity to the situation.

    If you’re still using EA story progression, I’d definitely suggest using a mod. I’m using Twallan’s and haven’t run into any issues with towns being overrun by old codgers or dying out completely. I’ve been using it successfully for a few months now.

    • Maooo! Long time, no see! I’m glad my pic of the reaper made you laugh. I found it pretty darned amusing myself. :)

      I’m using Twallan’s mod, and the town isn’t dying out or anything, but it does seem a bit geezer-heavy. I’m going to add some younger families to the mix and see if that shifts the balance of the demographics at all.

  11. I had a heck of a time with Twallan and elders until I installed SLAM (after asking on the forum and getting advice to do so) and set it to “real life” progression.

  12. I’ll elaborate. I started a neighborhood and just let it run for two days, checking the demographics using the Super computer. My neighborhood hovered at 34-55% elders on normal lifespan. I tried using short lifespan, to see if that would kill any off, and it did lower the elder percentage some, but not enough. Then I installed SLAM from MTS, the Real Life version, and that finally dropped my elder ration to around 20-25%.